


Not So Friendly Fire

by mcgarrygirl78



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Drama, F/M, Family, Missing Scene, Romance, spoilers for episode s16e24 Surrendering Noah
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-08
Updated: 2015-10-08
Packaged: 2018-04-25 10:11:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4956283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mcgarrygirl78/pseuds/mcgarrygirl78
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It didn’t take long for the tears to come.  They were fear, rage, sadness, and helplessness all rolled up into one.  Liv wrapped her arm around him and just held on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not So Friendly Fire

**Author's Note:**

> I put a bit of a different spin on the courtroom shootout in Surrendering Noah and its aftermath.

“Liv! No! Liv!”

He hadn’t meant to scream like that but Rafael didn’t know what to do. It was Fin who held him back from following Olivia and Nick right into the line of fire. Everyone in the courtroom heard the gunshots, it was six in all, and then the silence. Rafael didn’t think he'd ever heard silence like that in his life. He rushed for the doors, bursting through, and then felt the ground crumble from beneath his feet.

“Liv.” He rushed over to her. She was bleeding, holding her shoulder.

“I'm OK. Check on Nick, I think he's hurt really badly.”

“You are not OK.” Rafael took a deep breath to keep from passing out. Blood wasn’t a big issue but there was a lot of it gushing from Olivia’s shoulder wound. Wasn’t there a main artery somewhere near there? Could she bleed out right there on the linoleum? “You're bleeding…profusely.”

Amanda rushed to attend to Nick. He was lying on his back, a gunshot wound in the chest and knee.

“Rollins, is he responsive?” Olivia asked.

“Nick?” Amanda gave him a gentle slap in the face. “Amaro?”

“I'm not dead.” Nick grumbled.

“He's with us, Liv.”

“Get him in an ambulance ASAP!”

“Medics are on the way up right now.” Carisi rushed over. “Sarge…”

“It’s nothing, Carisi, I'm fine.”

“She is not fine.” Rafael said. “We need to get her to a hospital and I'm not going to hear any argument about it.”

“Someone needs to make sure all the girls are OK.” Olivia said. “The judge was shot, is she alright?”

“They're tending to her right now.” Carisi said. “None of the girls were hurt. The deputy is dead…Johnny D shot her in the head.”

Olivia didn’t get a chance to respond because medics were swarming the place. They immediately rushed to Amaro, seeing Olivia sitting up and talking made him the top priority. Barba moved so that he was crouched in front of Olivia instead of the side of her.

“Mi amor,” he whispered. “Don’t argue with me, just go to the hospital and get looked at. You're still bleeding pretty badly. Please.”

“I would argue but I'm starting to feel faint.”

“OK, OK,” Rafael turned around. “We need a medic here right now! She's losing blood from a shoulder wound.”

Two medics came over with a stretcher, immediately loading her up. They applied pressure to the wound and tried to get the bleeding to at least slow down.

“C’mon,” the male EMT said. “This is a bleeder; we need to get her out of here.”

“I'm coming with you.” Rafael ran alongside the stretcher.

“You're staying here and doing what needs to be done.” She said.

“Olivia.”

“Meet me at the hospital when the girls are safe. Rafael please, someone has to look out for them. Yo quiero.”

She whispered the last words and Rafael held onto them for dear life. He didn’t want to hear the rest of it but knew it was true. He and Olivia had asked those girls to put their lives on the line coming there to testify. And like something out of a bad dime store novel, the monster got his hands on a gun and shot up a courtroom. It had to have been a nightmare for those teenage girls. 

Someone gave him a towel and Rafael began to wipe the blood from his hands. Johnny D was dead, lying in a pool of blood not 20 feet away from where he was standing. Rafael wondered if it had been Amaro or Olivia who made the kill. The courts, the press, knew that Noah was that bastard’s biological son. If Olivia killed him it could be twisted to look like revenge instead of protecting the deputy. 

How the press might vilify her wasn’t even Rafael’s top concern. How would she live with herself knowing she'd killed her son’s father, no matter what a piece of shit he was? Would Judge Holden even sign the papers if there was a question that she had? Olivia had come too far and too close to let Johnny D ruin it even from the grave. Rafael needed to go check on the girls and then get to Bellevue. He had to make sure Liv was OK and find out who shot Johnny D.

***

“Where’s Benson?” Rafael burst through the large wall of law enforcement officers who had decided the waiting area was actually convention space. There was nowhere to walk and surely nowhere to breathe. Carisi was right on his tail; he asked about Nick as well.

“Nick is in surgery.” Amanda said. “The knee was easy but the chest wound lacerated his liver.”

“Liv, where is she Rollins?” it took all he had not to grab Amanda by the shoulders and get the information from her. Rafael knew, whether he was supposed to or not, that something was going on between Rollins and Amaro. If she felt a tenth of what he felt, which she had to from the helpless fear and anger on her face, then she needed to give him an answer.

“She's in the back with the doctors.” Amanda finally replied. “She’s alert and talking so they may just pull the bullet and stitch her up. Where’s Fin?”

“He went with the bodies back to the morgue.” Carisi replied. “We have to pull those bullets and see who shot who. IAB went in the back as I was coming in…do you think Tucker's harassing the Sarge?”

“Oh hell no.” Rafael rushed away, he was going to put a stop to that if it was the case. 

Whatever happened, the world wouldn’t miss the likes of Johnny D. He shot a judge, a deputy, and two cops. Add that to the list of his other crimes, which were going to get him life without parole and Olivia and Nick should get medals. IAB didn’t work like that but there were exceptions to every rule.

“Sir, you can't go back there.” A nurse stopped Rafael as he tried to get in the emergency area.

“I'm with the District Attorney’s office. Someone I care about very much is back there and if you could relax the rule….just this once I'm begging you.”

“Credentials?” she asked.

Rafael pulled out his wallet and showed them to her. She swiped her card across the electronic lock and the doors open. He ran though, almost afraid they were going to close before he got to her. Rafael took hold of the first nurse he saw.

“I need to know where Olivia Benson is. She was a cop brought in with a gunshot wound.”

“She's in room 15. You walk this short hall, turn the corner, and its down near the end on your left.”

“Thanks.”

He ran there. It only took 45 seconds but he ran there. Sure enough, Ed Tucker was in the room and they seemed to be in deep conversation. Rafael just walked in, clearing his throat and indicating that he was there and listening.

“Counselor.” Ed turned and looked at him.

“I hope you're not giving the sergeant hassle when she doesn’t have the opportunity to escape, Lieutenant.”

“No, we were just having a friendly conversation. IAB isn't going to make a big deal about this considering what Johnny D did to get it started. We just need to collect all the bullet evidence to make sure that the deputy wasn’t killed by friendly fire.” Ed put his hand on Liv’s shoulder. “I got your back on this Liv if I need to have it. The bastard deserved what he got; no one is going to miss him.”

“I appreciate it, Lieutenant. Can you get some information on Nick and bring it back to me?”

“I most certainly will. Your whole team out there?”

“Fin is with the M.E. making sure those bullets are extracted and properly preserved for comparison.” Liv replied.

“Just to be on the up and up…”

“He touches nothing, Rudnick is doing the dirty work.”

“Right. Well you feel better soon; the force is better with you on it.”

“If you keep talking so sweet to me I might start to think you actually like me.”

“Please think nothing of the sort, Sergeant.”

Ed winked and walked out of the room. Olivia looked at Rafael. There was a look of relief on her face but as soon as she saw his that changed.

“Rafi…”

“I heard bullets and I was sure you were dead.” He said. “I knew how much that bastard wanted to hurt you. He couldn’t have Noah but he could take away the one good thing he had…his mother. I was sure you were dead and I felt dead too.”

“C'mere.” She called him over with her good arm, the other was in a sling.

“I'm so angry.” Rafael was shaking when he said it.

“Rafael, please, ven acqi.” Olivia held out her hand.

He walked over and sat down on the bed. It didn’t take long for the tears to come. They were fear, rage, sadness, and helplessness all rolled up into one. Liv wrapped her arm around him and just held on. 

She understood his fear and anger. People who loved cops always tried to put them being injured or losing their lives into the back of their minds. It was a reality but it was a rarity. Still, rare wasn’t impossible and neither of them would be able to calculate just how close they came to losing each other this afternoon.

“I love you.” Rafael pressed his forehead on hers. “I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you Olivia Benson.”

“I love you too.” She kissed him. “I'm going to be fine. They extracted the bullet, patched up a pretty nasty wound, and I had a blood transfusion. My shoulder will be bound for three weeks or so but that’s OK because it’s just the excuse I need to spend a few days a week at home with Noah. Were the girls OK?”

“They are so strong, Liv. They rallied around each other; didn’t need me at all. But I triple checked on them before sending them back to the center. Even if we didn’t get everything we needed today, Johnny D is dead. Case closed.”

“What was going through his mind when he grabbed that gun? He knew he wouldn’t make it out alive. This man is a criminal mastermind, meticulous in everything he does. This was boneheaded and impulsive.”

“When your back is against the wall, boneheaded and impulsive probably sounds like a good plan.” Rafael said. “Does his motive really matter? He's dead.”

“It matters if his intent was to murder me.” She said. “Or to make me murder him.”

“He failed.” Rafael kissed her lips. “He failed and while I know it’s something that will be on your mind for some time to come, he failed Olivia.”

“Nick might pay with his life.”

Rafael knew what she was really saying. Amaro didn’t just run into that hallway because he was a cop and that’s what cops do. Her squad knew what Johnny D was holding over her head where her son was concerned and they knew Olivia wasn’t giving in or backing down with having him prosecuted. What if the world could suddenly be rid of the problem? 

So while Nick might not have had the purest thoughts when he ran out of that door, it didn’t matter. Johnny D signed his own death warrant when he grabbed the deputy and her gun. Maybe he wanted it to be Olivia though. He wanted her to have to live with murdering Noah’s father and even if he was dead and gone, he would still linger over their relationship like a menacing specter.

“He's in surgery right now. There are a lot of people out there praying for him to pull through.”

“I need to out there.” Olivia grimaced in pain as she sat up. “I'm the Sergeant; those are my cops. I'm supposed to lead.”

“I don’t even think you should be standing right now.” Rafael reasoned. “You were shot too, Liv. That wasn’t a graze wound.”

“Get me a wheelchair or get out of my way. I need to be out there with my guys.”

Rafael nodded, sighing as he went out in the hallway to procure a wheelchair. Olivia sat down in it. For a moment they didn’t move at all. He wrapped his arm around her neck and buried his face in her hair. He needed to smell her; that was his main connection with Olivia when they couldn’t be all over each other. He smelled her hair, her skin, anything. She stroked his arm and let him do what he needed to. Then the Assistant District Attorney for the Manhattan Sex Crimes Division wheeled the Sergeant of the 1-6 out into the area where her entire squad and a lot of other NYPD officers who got the news were waiting.

“I got you both coffee.” Carisi handed over the two paper cups. “It’s kinda warm now but…”

“Its fine, Carisi.” Rafael said. “It'll still do the job.”

“Where is Rollins?” Liv asked. “What's the news on Amaro?”

“He's still in surgery; they're working on the lacerated liver. They expect him to make it but they're being cautiously optimistic. I don’t know if Rollins went to the chapel or outside to bum a smoke from some of the cops out there. She didn’t want me tailing her.”

“Any news from Fin?”

“The bullets in Johnny D are definitely NYPD issued. The Deputy was killed with her own gun. They're going to use serial numbers to see if the bullets connect back to you or Nick.”

“Call Fin and let him know that IAB already has our weapons so they can get this over with sooner rather than later. There's no need to spare anyone…just test them and let it be what it will be.”

“You got it, Sarge.”

Carisi walked away. Liv looked at Barba, who was standing beside her wheelchair like security and she was able to take a minute away from the chaos and smirk to herself. Then reality set back in, making her take account of the late hour. Lucy was at home with Noah and Olivia didn’t know if she would be able to stay late tonight. She had Rafael wheel her someplace that was remotely quiet; over by the women’s bathroom did the trick. She called home.

“Hey Lucy, I don’t want to alarm you but there was a shooting at the courthouse late this afternoon.”

“I know. The news channel was on when I turned on the TV. I made sure Noah didn’t see anything but are you alright?”

“I was shot in the shoulder but please don’t worry, I'm going to be fine. I'm just calling to say I have no idea when I'm going to be home and I hate keeping you with such short notice. If you can't do it, I can call Trevor and I know he’ll come over and help out.”

“I can stay until 9.” Lucy said. “That shouldn’t be a problem.”

“OK, then my goal is to get home by 9. If you hear a knock instead it'll probably be Trevor. Thank you so much Lucy. Just give Noah lots of kisses from mommy and I’ll be home as soon as I can.”

“I will Olivia, and be safe.”

“Thanks.”

Ending the call, Olivia just dropped the phone in her lap. Her shoulder hurt something fierce…she wanted something strong for it. But there was no way she could attend to this issue and take care of Noah later if she was high on Percocet. It sounded like a damn good idea right now though.

“Rafael?”

“Hmm?”

“Go find a nurse and ask what’s the strongest thing they can give me that isn't a narcotic. The adrenaline is definitely wearing off and the pain is about to knock me on my ass.”

“OK.” He went to walk away but Olivia took hold of his hand. He looked down at her and then their joined hands.

“You did a damn good job out there today, Counselor. You helped calm down a very scary situation for everyone, you tended to the judge’s wounds, and made sure all the girls were safe. You did all that being worried that someone you loved was hurt.”

“I'm not a hero, just a lucky man that I didn’t lose someone very important to me today. That’s all. I‘ll be right back.”

As he walked away, Liv started rolling toward where more cops were congregating. She had no idea where Rollins was and knew that in stressful situations she could sometimes do impulsive things. Olivia didn’t know the depth of feelings between Rollins and Amaro, and she didn’t want to know. But she knew what it was like to see someone you liked shot and someone you loved shot. Neither time was easy. 

There was also a lot more riding on this case than just putting a trafficker behind bars. Some of that was Liv’s fault but she meant what she said. She wasn’t going to build an entire life with the child she always wanted on a lie. If it turned out that it was her gun that killed Johnny D then she would take responsibility and just pray that Judge Holden and Noah both understood why it had to be done.

“What did you bring me?” she tried to put on a smile when Rafael came back.

“1600 mg of Motrin. The nurse thinks this will do the trick as long as you don’t have a high tolerance for drugs.”

“I don’t, mostly.” Olivia popped them in her mouth, drinking them down with her still nearly warm coffee. She wasn’t sure if it was an old wives’ tale but caffeine was supposed to make medicine work quicker. She needed it to tonight, for her shoulder and the massive headache that was about to make her its bitch.

***

Liv wasn’t in pain right now but she knew that was a façade. She’d sent Lucy home and was now sitting on the couch with Rafael and Noah. The baby refused to go to sleep until he saw mommy, and it felt so good to hold him. Nick was out of surgery and resting in ICU. She’d spoken to Fin and found out something that she already knew…her bullets didn’t kill Johnny D. Tomorrow would be another long day in a long week. Liv didn’t know how long this peaceful moment would last but she needed to hold onto it.

“Is he asleep?” she asked.

“Hmm?” Rafael glanced at her.

“Is Noah asleep?”

“Yes.”

“Who’s heavier, me or him?”

“Definitely him. He's like a bowling ball with arms and legs.”

“Don’t make me laugh, Barba. Jesus.”

“I'm sorry.” He grinned, not even believing he could after the day he had. “I'm so sorry, mi amor.” 

“He needs to go to bed.” Olivia said.

“I’ll take care of it. You probably shouldn’t do the heavy lifting for a few days or more.”

“I'm the mom of a toddler…heavy lifting is my job.”

“Not for the next two days or more.” Rafael said. He removed his hand from around Olivia’s shoulder and cradled Noah. He got up from the couch.

“I need to call Trevor.” Liv grabbed her cell phone from the coffee table. “I know it’s late but we’re supposed to be meeting with Judge Holden in the next seven to ten days to finalize the adoption. After what's happened tonight, I don’t if…”

“Do you really need to do that now?” he was speaking in a low tone, didn’t want to wake the baby.

Olivia looked at him for a moment. The man she loved holding the child she loved. Noah was absolutely at ease with him and even though he had a stumbling start, Rafael had recently gotten to the same place. It definitely needed to be right now. Everything she had been through, what her squad had been through, facing down Johnny D. Liv hadn’t gone through that to wait another moment to be a mother. Social Services had already signed off on it and now it was a judge’s turn.

“Yes.”

“OK.” He nodded. “You call Trevor and then its straight to the bedroom.”

“Are you attempting to seduce me, Counselor?”

“I wish I had that kind of energy. I do plan to be clingy for a little while…what happened today scared the hell out of me.”

“I can live with that.”

“You're going to have to.” He bent to kiss her. “Don’t be too long, Liv.”

“I won't.”

She watched he and Noah walk away. She dialed Trevor’s number, wondering if he already had some idea of what happened. It was all over the news this evening. He probably hadn’t called her because he had no idea where she was and what she was doing. 

But she had to know if they had a date for the finalization. She had to know that after the hardships of this past year that she and Noah were going to be together. As far as they'd all come none of it was guaranteed. Liv felt Judge Linden was on her side but with this shooting…Trevor really needed to answer the phone.

“They said you were shot on TV.” Trevor said. “Did he shoot you, Olivia? Are you alright?”

“Hello to you too, Trevor.” She smiled some. “I'm going to be fine, it’s just a flesh wound.” Not quite but it didn’t matter. “I called to talk about Noah. Have you heard from the judge? I just need some good news right now and I'm looking at you to give it to me.”

“I told you this was going to be a long week, didn’t I?”

***


End file.
